Fibrous structures, such as sanitary tissue products, for example, are useful in many ways in everyday life. These products can be used as wiping implements for post-urinary and post-bowel movement cleaning (toilet tissue and wet wipes), for otorhinolaryngological discharges (facial tissue), and multi-functional absorbent and cleaning uses (paper towels).
Retail consumers fibrous structures such as paper towels and bath tissue look for certain properties, including softness, strength, and absorbency, for example. Such properties can be supplied in a fibrous structure by the selection of the material components of the fibrous structure and the manufacturing equipment and processes used to make it.
However, also important in today's retail environment is the appearance of a paper towel or bath tissue. That is, in addition to superior performance properties of a fibrous structure, retail consumers desire the product to be visually appealing. Thus, manufacturers of fibrous structures such as paper towels and bath tissue must produce products that both perform well, and have consumer-acceptable aesthetic qualities.
Often the two goals of superior product performance and desirable aesthetics are in contradiction to one another. For example, absorbency or strength in a paper towel can depend on processing parameters such as the structure of papermaking belts during paper making or the emboss pattern applied during converting operations. Both paper structures produced during papermaking and embossing can affect the physical properties of the finished product, but they also affect the visual, aesthetic properties. It can happen that a fibrous structure in the form of a paper towel, for example, can have superior absorbency properties in a visually un-aesthetic manner.
Another problem with different physical properties into fibrous structures is that consumers of rolled tissue products, such as bathroom tissue and paper towels, generally prefer firm rolls. A firm roll conveys superior product quality and conveys sufficient fibrous structure material is present on the roll and consequently provides value for the consumer. A firm roll is one with a lower percent compressibility value. From the standpoint of a fibrous structure manufacturer, however, when making product property changes providing a firm roll or one with a low percent compressibility can be a challenge.
Further, in order to provide a target roll diameter, while maintaining an acceptable cost of manufacture, the fibrous structure manufacturer must produce a finished fibrous structure roll having higher roll bulk. One means of increasing roll bulk is to wind the fibrous structure roll loosely. Loosely wound rolls however, have low firmness or high compressibility and are easily deformed, which makes them unappealing to consumers. The fibrous structure manufacturer's challenge can be greater with certain physical properties of a fibrous structure, such as new surface topology in a single or multiply rolled tissue product. As such, there is a need for fibrous structure rolls having high bulk as well as good firmness (low percent compressibility) even after the fibrous structure has been modified with new physical properties of the finished fibrous structure product. Furthermore, it is desirable to provide a rolled tissue product with high roll bulk and low percent compressibility while comprising a high basis weight fibrous structure sheet spirally wound on the roll where the fibrous structure sheet provides greater absorbency, strength, and is aesthetically acceptable in use.
The existing art can be improved, and the consumer desired results can be achieved, by new fibrous structures that deliver both superior performance properties and consumer-desirable aesthetic properties.
Further, the existing art can be improved by new rolled tissue products that deliver superior performance properties and/or consumer-desirable aesthetic properties and can be converted to rolled tissue products having consumer-acceptable roll properties, such as roll bulk and percent compressibility.